In the era of Anglo-American expansion into the North American west, perhaps no event created as much tension amongst the northern and southern states as the Mexican War. James K. Polk, a long-time congressional representative from Tennessee and one-term governor of the state, came to the presidency just at the high moment of this political crux. President John Tyler annexed Texas the day before exchanging power with the incoming Tennessean. But Polk had his sights on more than the Lone Star State. Early in his presidency it was clear that he had a vision for acquiring what would become the entirety of the western United States.
The annexation of all of this land required negotiations with many countries, but most importantly Mexico. And if negotiations proved ineffective, Polk was determined to take it by force – which is exactly what occurred.
Polk’s willingness to initiate hostilities with Mexico generated a number of concerns. First, it extended the expansionist desires of the United States further than many were comfortable. The United States had some claim to the Oregon Territory. Yet, the exact boundary between its and the British claim was in dispute. Many Americans called for the U.S. to fight the British if it received anything less than the territory all the way to the 54°40’ parallel north line. A line that would have extended U.S. territory almost to Alaska. Polk compromised and settled the boundary along the 49th parallel. While that settled the Oregon conflict, the land south of the Oregon territory unequivocally belonged to Mexico. That wasn’t enough to deter Polk.
Going after California was a step too far for many Americans. It involved taking land of which there was no dispute. If Polk could broker a deal to purchase the land, there was precedent in American history going back to the Louisiana Purchase. But Mexico proved unwillingly to simply sell their northern half.
Second, Polk seemed to manufacture the war through an unnecessarily provocative baiting of a Mexican attack. This was highlighted in a resolution by Congressional Representative Abraham Lincoln in 1847 where he asked President Polk to explain the “spot” where the attack occurred, and if “that spot is or is not within the territory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary Government of Mexico.” As Lincoln, and others realized, Polk had ordered troops into territory that Mexico claimed as its own and only retaliated against, what it determined to be, an invasive force.[1] Image: President James K. Polk
Finally, for a nation that already felt polarized over the expansion of slavery, newly annexed lands seemed like a Southern ploy to continue slavery’s extension west. This point was not lost on the nation’s most prominent leaders. Daniel Webster, the long-term statesman from Massachusetts, for example, argued that the free states “protest against the extension of slave territory; one and all, they regards it as a solemn duty of the representatives of the free States to take security, in advance, that no more slave States shall be added to the Union” before the further acquisition of land from Mexico.[2]
As seen in the voting record, both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly supported he war anyway. The House voted in favor 174 to 11, and the Senate, 40 to 2. But that masked the general discomfort that many Americans felt for the war. For example, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, a Democrat from Missouri who grew increasingly uncomfortable with slavery as the topic became central to political debate (despite being a slaveholder himself) wrote that many members of Congress were “extremely averse to this war,” but voted for it out of “duress in the necessity of aiding our troops.”[3]
Rutherford B. Hayes, just a small-town lawyer in Lower Sandusky, correctly diagnosed the peculiarities of the conflict. After hostilities broke out he wrote, “The Whigs were unanimous in blaming the administration and the Locos[4] were equally united in denouncing the Whigs as tories[5] … Then came the volunteering! Of course there was a great deal of patriotism. Whigs enlisted to show that they were not tories and Locos enlisted because the Whigs called them cowards.”[6]
His objections to the war centered partly on the way it was conducted. “Mr. Polk and his Cabinet,” he explained, “expected the Mexicans to ‘own up’ as soon as our forces came down upon them. But instead … nobody comes out to fight us.” He even ridiculed an attempt at a 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers by calling its members “low devils,” and “perfectly lawless … Colonists.”[7]
But the crux of Hayes’s argument lied within the question of slavery. And, Hayes understood that:
“In the Political world, the feeling against slavery & slave holders is increasing with astonishing rapidity … The feeling is getting so strong that all parties will soon take the ground in the North – no more slave holding presidents – Slave territory or Slave States.”
Nothing in this passage directly ties Hayes to these sentiments. He depersonalizes his description as “the Political world,” and not about how he feels. But, in 1846, he grasped a reality that became plain by the 1850s. The traditional party structure that transcended sectional divide was crumbling. The future would no longer include a Whig versus Democratic rivalry, but a North versus South and free versus slave. And, being in the North and in union with the Whig adherents, it’s not a far stretch to see that Hayes was also becoming increasingly invested in an end to “slave holding presidents – Slave territory” and “Slave States.”[8]
Considering the Tennessean Polk and his war represented all of these things, Hayes was embracing the northern cause and drifting deeply into an anti-slavery stance.
[1] “Spot Resolutions” on Mexican War by Abraham Lincoln, December 22, 1847.
[2] Remarks of Daniel Webster to the Senate, March 1, 1847.
[3] Found in Walter R. Borneman, Polk: The Man who Transformed the Presidency and America (New York: Random House, 2008), 244-245.
[4] The Locofocos were a faction within the Democratic party. By the late-1840s, many people (like Hayes) used it synonymously with Democrats.
[5] During the Texas Revolution, Tories were those who supported the Mexican government since they were more interested in financial gain than in politics. In this way, calling Whigs “tories” was a pejorative term used to question their loyalty.
[6] RBH to William Lane, July 11, 1846, HPLM.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.